Not quite as planned.

Dime started 1st stage of labour in the early hours of Sat morning, to cut a long story short, as I haven't seen my bed since then, her labour just didn't progress. After speaking to the vet we decided she needed to be seen. We got to the surgery at about 2:30 where she was examined and found to have a puppy in the birth canal, but too far in for the vet to help it out. Dime was given a shot of oxytocin and within half an hour she delivered the tiniest standard puppy I have ever seen, weighing in at just 140gms I expected him to be stillborn, but he came out with a heartbeat so a little bit of work got him up and running.

After another hour Dime was still not really making much effort at pushing so the decision was made to perform a C section. I was expecting a small litter of maybe 5 or 6 but she has a family of 8, 4 girls and 4 boys.

Dime is home now, she is still pretty groggy but is currently laying nicely with her pups, who are all eager to feed. The tiddler, christened Jack Jack (explanation will follow after I've had a snooze) is going to need help and a good dollop of luck if he is to have a chance of surviving, but he is currently active and he has taken a little formula from a bottle as he can't compete with his larger siblings. Hopefully if we can get him through the first few days he will gain strength and vigour and will be able to start to jostle for a place at the milk bar.

Those who have followed me over the years would now be expecting the webcam to be up and running, but that will have to wait for now as my priority is to ensure that Dime and her pups are ok and the webcam is an added pressure for me. Unfortunately there was obviously no way of streaming the birth, but I will get the webcam running as soon as I am comfortable that everyone is ok.

Here are a couple of very quick pics taken just now.